Boys' Deaths Highlight Growing Poverty in China

11/21/2012 12:06AM

The death of five boys has started an online frenzy of criticism from China's Internet users. The WSJ's Josh Chin talks about the unspoken topic of China's growing poor and why it's a black mark for socialism with Chinese characteristics.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... the ... it down ... five children in southwestern China ... lightning fire inside a dumpster to stay warm ... has captivated with news is in the country ... joining me now is reporter Josh Chin from Bejing ... okay Josh had this story has certainly hit a nerve in time that is quite a tragedy ... five delays at thirteen years old and under I'm tragically killed ... what are people saying inside the country ... or the ready to serve understood what he would say and understand the background here I China's just coming off its eighteenth Party Congress ... which is this ... big meeting the governor's party has every five years this this time they introduced a new generation of leaders ... and all of those were characterized by a lot of current law the ... rhetoric about this from the six s in the victories of socialism with Chinese characteristics which assorted ... ChinaScope work for a system of ... state controlled but capitalists ... um so you know who to give some back and have something like this happen would happen literally a day after the new Congress party leader ... but she Jinping me to spur speech ... a lot of people ... were putting up the contrasts ... in India that rhetoric with the sort of ... harsh reality ... I that these these kids face ... a lot of people ... were trying ... connections with ... Hans Christian Andersen story ... of the little match girl about ... about a young girl who to sort of died in similar circumstances that in the past ... a lot of Chinese people of the study does and as an example of the sort of difficulties for people face ... in the woods ... so this is what a lot of people sort of question ... know whether what what is coming out of Bejing is is is is really ... accurate ... ok what what exactly were the circumstances surrounding and these young boy is a go anywhere they've living on this chain did it did they have pants with a ... goalless at what was a circumstance ... um Wooten it is that the circumstances are sort of ... this is still getting more more detail it's it's it's you know what exactly homeless I'll ... that said they are due to face a situation a lot of children ... face which is a was that the children of mine workers ... there are the sons of three brothers or cousins ... two of the brothers were working as garbage collectors and change and invest it in ... your city in another province ... us parents were around the work of a lot of their own devices ... I'm that that that didn't ... seem to have very much money ... um and you know this is this is the city yet ... it is so big they were living in QUITO province support profits in the city that they live in that particular store ... I've known for for poverty and eruption than that of the doubt ... for social services about sort of thing ... just let you reading this store a ad I was thinking about the fact that we always hear about the growing rich in China I you know X amount of million N is coming on line ... what we really care about is Andy for population and ... how just how much is upon reaching growing in China and ... India is the government prepared to to deal with this ... read read but I actually really interesting question chart of reason in Europe Obama won any of the commoners party it ... says rightly claiming that they've brought millions of people out of poverty over the last twenty thirty years of economic reform and growth ... the difficulty is that the standard or property that they have user amenable recently ... reduced the poverty level ... which it did earlier this year ... before that they were ... using the same of the level of a ball was using whichever distorted things ... I'm in a new ways to regardless of the statistics of this there is definitely a growing wealth gap with China ... um ... you know war is one sort of all Chinese family roughly on the whole financial footing now ... I've read a recent study come out earlier this year ... it shows that the ... top ten percent of a country owns ... more than half of the country's wealth ... which makes Chavez ... what's more money more unequal than the US and even some some countries in Africa ... the other the other sort of ... challenge of the Communist Party ... it was all this especially coming out of of of of a tea party congress ... you know in addition to the slap of the social safety net that a lot of frustration with the eruption ... in the sense that ... one of the reasons the economy is so unequal ... I is that people with power of people were politically connected to our are basically ... the ... it's taking all the money and sort of ... benefiting from the pulpit from the growth so in addition to ... poverty level of public anger ... you know what people feeling that the system is rigged ... and what is this a Mr. especially interesting ... you know with the internet a lot of Chinese people are responding to to things like this therefore ... putting more pressure on the government ... I thanks very much John stand joining us from BJ now for more on that star am you can go to China Real Time are part and WSJ's dot com I'm Deborah con for The Wall Street Journal digital network